


In the Little House by the Woods

by solitary_thrush



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, F/M, Hannigram - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Poor Will, Prescription Drug Abuse, Slow Burn, Will-centric, Willana - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-16
Updated: 2014-06-27
Packaged: 2018-02-04 21:33:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 7,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1793896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solitary_thrush/pseuds/solitary_thrush
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-S2. As in <i>Red Dragon</i>, Will descends into drug use & abuse (tw). Alana and Hannibal each try in their own way to save him. There's Hannigram (in memories/dreams), Willana (in which nothing is easy), and canon-typical Will abuse. </p><p>This fic attempts to be both realistic and entertaining as it explores the aftermath of S2 for Will.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bliss

When Will wakes up, Freddie Lounds is typing steadily in a chair to his left. The remnants of a drug-warped nightmare cling to him: the ocean of Abigail’s eyes, the blood gushing from her artery, the heat of their liquid life on his chest and cheek and forehead. The slaughterhouse stench. Her panicked breathing, her warm skin under his hand. Her confusion and terror. His disbelief and despair. 

Will breathes in and a stab of pain chases the vision away. 

On his chest swaddled in drugs lies the hurt he felt when Hannibal sliced into her. Vaguely, he wonders when it will wake up and what it will want and what he’ll do about it. His tongue moves of its own accord inside the desert of his mouth. The typing stops.

Freddie’s eyes bore into him. 

Will glances away, his gaze swinging over to his midsection and fixing on the bulge of bandages under the blanket. The memory of Hannibal’s warmth and scent as the blade cut into him threatens to send him tumbling down the spiral of association. But he’s buoyed by the pleasant interruption of whatever strong opiate he’s on. His mind skips like a needle scratching into vinyl. He feels drunk. Drunk and forgetful and happy. 

Will decides he wants to feel like this always. 

Freddie shifts in the chair. “The doctors say you’ll need more surgery but that you should make a substantial recovery.” 

Will’s eyes shift to her right shoulder. 

Freddie’s expression softens. “Whatever that means.” 

Will tilts his head a fraction. He isn’t sure he wants to hear what else Freddie has to tell him. If he dwells in not knowing what happened, maybe he can pretend none of it did. But even this thought conjures visuals he wants to unsee: the line of blood running out of Alana’s mouth; the seep of it from the pantry; the spray from Abigail’s swan-white neck. 

Will turns beseeching eyes on Freddie. She tries a tight smile but her face betrays her. Will, having seen the answer, looks away and embraces the hurt trying to slice through the cocoon of painkillers. 

“Abigail didn’t make it,” Freddie says softly. Her hand comes to rest on his. “I’m so sorry, Will.”

Will tries to swallow around the wave of emotion rising in his throat. Tears sting his eyes. Freddie’s hand holds steadfast as despair claims him. His guts send waves of agony that feel somehow cleansing, like the scour of acid. He wants to hurt. He needs to.

But he lacks the strength for it and it subsides quickly. The opiate holds him as waves batter him indifferently. He feels seasick. Bile rises in his throat and burns just behind his tongue. He wants to vomit but lacks the strength for that, too. 

A tissue dabbing the tear tracks on his face reminds him of Freddie. Will blinks blearily, his eyelids suddenly heavy. 

Freddie must recognize something because she starts talking in low tones. Jack is alive but in critical condition. Alana’s in better shape but not by much. The FBI has Hannibal on video leaving the country with Bedelia Du Maurier. Interpol has issued alerts across the European Union…

Will tries to turn his head away. He doesn’t want to hear about Hannibal. Not ever. He feels bile burning his throat again as a nurse strides into the room. Freddie straightens up and smiles. 

“Ah, Ben,” Freddie coos, still grasping Will’s hand. “As you can see, my brother is finally awake.”

“And upset,” Ben scolds, shooing Freddie aside. “Mr. Graham, can you –”

Whatever Ben has to say is drowned out by a wave of pain that breaks over Will’s head and pulls him under. 

…all I needed to know,” Will hears when he returns to the world. 

Confused and exhausted, Will blinks stupidly at Ben, who’s adding something to the IV. No sooner does Will notice the action than he feels what Ben’s giving him. 

Precious escape. 

Will closes his eyes and slips into the sweet stream of bliss.


	2. Certified

As soon as Will can stay awake for more than a few minutes, he seeks the trout stream. Under Chilton’s care, he’d become so adept at accessing his refuge that it appears before him with minimal effort. The painkiller’s hypnotic effect makes it easier for him to stay there, which is good because he never wants to leave.

A hospital psychiatrist visits him within half a day. 

“Where do you go?”

Will stares at his aching guts to avoid looking at the person. He has no need to take in details about anyone anymore.

“A stream,” he replies quietly. 

The sweep of a pen across paper. “Why do you go there?”

Will takes a breath, still envisioning himself knee-deep in the rapids. 

“It’s peaceful.”

Abigail is there. He’s teaching her more knots. The pain is easier to ignore.

“Do you control when you go and when you return?”

“Yes,” he hears himself say. Abigail stops tying the knot he’s shown her and looks toward the bank. 

Will, newly aware of how hard the mattress on the bed is, raises his eyebrows slightly. “Sometimes I get interrupted.” 

With a deep sense of resignation, he tunnels out of the stream. The white blanket covering the wreck of his body stings his eyes. Will squints at the psychiatrist but doesn’t let himself absorb more than colors. 

“It’s my coping strategy, doctor,” he explains tiredly. “Isn’t this another kind of prison? Why wouldn’t I want to escape?”

More pen noises. A pointed in-take of breath. 

“You can’t escape forever.”

Will closes his eyes. “No,” he concedes. “But I can now. I need to now.”

When hours pass and no new pills are added to his already-full paper cups, Will knows his sanity has been reaffirmed.


	3. Sleeping Dragon

Will wakes up hours later in the dead of night certain he’s insane because every sense he has tells him he’s still lying on the floor next to Abigail. He screams but no sound comes out. The floor opens and a great fiery lake spreads out between them. Will, one arm around his belly, scrambles desperately to grab her hand. 

Her placid, unfocused eyes say she’s already dead.

Hannibal’s hands, enormous, reach out and take Will’s wrists. Hannibal lashes them together and pins them above his head, heedless of his pained cries. Will tries to fight. He struggles, curses, bites. But he’s weak and Hannibal has the strength of a machine. 

Some time later, the dark volcanic world brightens. He hears low professional voices and feels some drug dull the fight in him. The words “fever,” “sepsis,” “emergency,” and “surgery” suggest a narrative, but Will knows nothing beyond the pool of Abigail’s blood licking his skin. 

A confusion of sound and movement and the unwanted touch of other people’s hands make him squirm and shrink. He wants desperately to return to the stream. Abigail won’t stop staring. Hands grip him tightly and everything falls away. 

He drifts into a quiet eddy. Pale starlight and a dark sky soothe him. 

Sometime later, he plunges from a rock face into a deep pool just off of a cold stream. When he surfaces, he feels refreshed in the way only sunlight and running water afford. The day is absolutely gorgeous. Puffy white clouds frame a rich blue summer sky. He recognizes this place. This is a good place.

“Will!” Abigail yells happily. “Watch!”

Will spots her on the rocks. Fifteen feet up. Not bad. He smiles.

He watches as she hesitates, then musters the courage and jumps. He can’t help but laugh as the water she displaces splashes his face. 

Abigail comes up sputtering. “It’s cold!” 

“Told you it would be,” Will replies. 

“Not this cold,” Abigail teases. She splashes him playfully. 

“Now you’re used to it,” Will says as he swims back to the rocks. He hauls himself up and begins climbing. “Try it from twenty feet.”

Abigail looks askance at him from the water. “How much different can it be?”

Will smiles down at her. “The air changes. You feel like you’re going to hit the water before you do.”

With that, she looks convinced and joins him in climbing. 

He has time to take in the beauty of the day while she catches up with him. The bright sun, the green trees, the warm rocks under his feet – as Will watches Abigail ascend the final few feet, he realizes he feels whole. 

Abigail squints in the sun. “Wanna jump together?” 

Will glances at her proffered hand. “Sure,” he says with a grin. “One, two, three, jump, okay?”

Abigail nods and gives him a toothy smile. Will counts and they leap into the air. 

The cold shocks his system again. When he surfaces for air, Abigail is gone. The sun is gone, too, replaced by leaden clouds. 

Suddenly he’s in the basement of Tobias Budge’s string shop with a garrote of cold metal around his neck. Except it’s not Budge but Hannibal who’s behind him, Hannibal who has him in a strangle hold. 

Will fights against the cold thing wrapped around his neck. Hannibal whispers in his ear about love and ardor and intimacy. About how very _personal_ strangulation is. 

Will struggles mightily. But Hannibal has his hands pinned and a hypodermic needle full of – well, could be anything. Will yells as the needle approaches his forearm. Hannibal smiles up at him as he slips the needle in. 

“You will feel better soon, my good Will,” Hannibal soothes.

Will finds himself agreeing. He nods without thinking. 

“It’s only a fever,” Hannibal adds as he withdraws the needle. 

Will watches quietly as Hannibal caps it and puts it in his pocket. Then those eyes are on him again. Hannibal moves closer. Not much closer, but enough to move from doctor to friend to something else. Hannibal reaches out and brushes Will’s wet hair from his forehead. Will closes his eyes. A sense of well-being settles over him like he’s floating on a cool lake. He sighs contentedly. 

As his body succumbs, Will treads circles around the base of the mountain inside him where Hannibal lives like a sleeping dragon. The longer he walks, the more certain he is that no amount of denial will change the fact that Hannibal loved him. And that he loved Hannibal back. 

And so he circles the mountain. What he’s waiting for he doesn’t know. Just that he’ll recognize the moment when it arrives.


	4. Family

Margot sits with Will for hours at a time speculating about what went on between him and Dr. Lecter. At first, it’s pleasant sitting and speculating because Will is recovering from blood loss and surgery and is kept doped into oblivion. She studies him, taking in his handsome features, and doesn’t see why he and Hannibal wouldn’t have gone as far as two people can go together. Anyway, _someone_ trained Will well. She doubts it was a woman. 

She misses a day, too busy trying something new on Mason, and when she sees Will again, he’s burning with fever and squirming all over the narrow bed. An expected infection, she’s told by one of those sympathetic smilers. They don’t want to exhaust him but the longer he can stand the high temperature, the more pathogens perish in the heat. She’s given a cold cloth and invited to tend to him. Margot offers a strained smile in return and dabs halfheartedly at Will’s forehead until the smiler leaves. 

She lays the cloth next to Will’s head where he can turn into it if he wants. During her earlier visits, Will had been dressed and tucked in. Now he’s half-naked, a gown draped over his stomach, the sheet and blanket kicked into a tangle at his feet. 

Margo pushes aside the gown and stares. His abdomen is swollen and angry, ready to burst open and spill its rotten contents onto the pristine sheets. Cut from end to end just as she imagined he would be. Laced together with black stitches that make the wound seem even more sinister. She’s sorry but not surprised to see a tube snaking out of the wound and disappearing over the other side of the bed. 

Margot’s index finger ghosts the outline of her own wound, not quite a scar yet. What a different life they could have had.

She gently drapes the gown back over Will. On a hunch, she takes his hand and leans closer to him so he’ll hear her. As Will tosses his head and strains his neck, fighting a monster she knows she’d recognize, Margot murmurs encouragement.


	5. Failure

When Alana is finally taken to see him, the stubborn ache in her back diminishes for the first time since she woke up. In his restless, half-open eyes and hair plastered to his forehead, she sees delirium. Abject terror. 

Alana pushes through the pain of moving to take his hand. She marshals every resource she has to request her phone, and then to make the words on the screen match the sounds coming out of her mouth. 

They say it’s temporary. They say she’s getting better.

But her head pounds before she’s done with the first paragraph and Will hasn’t calmed down like he did when she read to him before. So long ago, though it’s hardly been a year. A more innocent time when her biggest concern was whether he’d recover enough to understand that he killed five people. 

Tears blur the words on the screen. She’s wheeled away from him and back into the iron cage of her broken body.


	6. A Quiet Place

One evening while Will is curled in a ball sweating and clutching his guts as they wrestle with the applesauce he was forced to eat, his doctor comes in and sits down in the visitor’s chair. 

“I hear you’ve had a long day,” the doctor says.

His tone lacks the normal patina of distance concealed by false cheer. Will perks up just a little.

“Thought you might like the taste of something besides the inside of your mouth.” 

Will looks with curiosity on the open bag of Jolly Rancher candies proffered by the suddenly enigmatic doctor. He forces himself to free an arm from its protective position over his abdomen and picks a green one, hoping ever so slightly it’ll be green apple. Although pain has dulled his ability to notice or care about anything, Will thinks that this green candy doesn’t look quite right. 

“It’s an edible,” the doctor supplies as he offers Will a piece of paper. “Prescribed to you by me, legal in the state of Maryland, but not standard practice just yet in this hospital, hence the camouflage.” The doctor smiles. “It’ll relax you, help with the pain, and help you sleep. You might feel hungry, in which case I advise you to eat.” 

Will glances from the candy to the doctor and back. 

The doctor shifts in the chair. “As with anything I prescribe, you can choose not to take it,” he qualifies. 

Will makes himself swallow and move his tongue so he can moisten his mouth enough to speak. “The other stuff…” he begins, flinching when a spike of pain interrupts him. He’s learned he can’t do anything other than breathe through it, so he breathes through it. When it eases a fraction and he can speak again, he finishes his thought: “Makes my dreams worse.”

“You should feel this in your body, not your mind,” the doctor supplies. 

Pain more than information persuades Will. He pops the candy in his mouth and is ever so slightly pleased that it is green apple – then disappointed when he doesn’t feel anything right away. 

IV injections have spoiled him, he thinks. 

The doctor gets to his feet. “Give it about ten minutes,” he says. “I’ll be back to check on you.”

As the door closes, all Will can think is that it _is_ good to taste something besides the inside of his mouth. Nothing about the candy tastes strange, though it’s not as sugary as it could be. 

With sudden delight, he realizes that he could request other candy. Or something else with flavor. Anything but the bland stuff he’s made to eat so he can spend most of his time curled up in a ball suffering. 

Like now. 

Except – he feels heavier. Like he’s slowly melting into the mattress. 

Will takes a deep breath, expecting the worst. But he doesn’t feel much pain. Instead he feels expansive. Everywhere and nowhere at once.

He realizes couldn’t move if he tried and he thinks that’s probably for the best. It’s then that he understands why this drug was prescribed to him. Suddenly, he feels good about perusing the way it boosts the opiates he’s on.

Will hardly notices when the doctor returns. He’s inside his head lying comfortably in a sleeping bag in the Smokies. Abigail is asleep in a tent on the other side of a recently-extinguished camp fire. An owl hoots over a tree frog chorus. Will breathes in fresh mountain air and feels so relaxed he may as well be melting into the very earth itself. 

“Feeling better?” the doctor asks in a low tone.

Will smiles in the darkness of the tent. “Much.” 

From many miles away, Will senses that the light has gone out in the hospital room. He sighs happily into the synthetic fabric of his sleeping bag. The cool mountain air has begun to settle in around him. He’s happier than he’s been in a long time. 

Through the mesh top of his tent, he watches the stars wheel across the sky.


	7. A Pact

Will is contentedly ensconced in the quiet place his new medicine has carved for him when the door opens and Alana slowly makes her way into the room. Will turns his head to watch her ease across the floor with the help of a cane. He resists the impulse to sit up; they’ve been making him do that a few times a day and it leaves him in agony. Instead, he takes his time turning from his back to his side. It’s a delicate maneuver since he’s got a tube sticking out of his torso, but he’s getting better at it. Still, he can’t help but feel like the invalid he is.

At least Alana looks okay. Freddie, ever the gossip, has kept him up to date on Alana and Jack. They’ll both be going home soon. Will envies their return to privacy. He wants to feel good for them, and to the degree he feels anything, he does feel mostly good. But that feeling is as distant from him as his former self. 

Will watches Alana move stiffly but at a decent pace. She smiles at him and carefully sits. Will sighs mentally. Whatever she wants – information, commiseration, support – he doesn’t think he can give it. He hasn’t got anything left to give. 

As they exchange subdued hellos, Hannibal’s long shadow settles over the room. Will feels emotions stir where he’s tamped them into the ground. He swallows and tries to think of something to say.

“You’re looking good.” His voice is rough with disuse. He wants to clear his throat, but like sitting up, it isn’t a good idea. “Got a discharge date?”

“Tomorrow,” she answers in a low, slightly guilty tone. “Not sure I’m ready for the dogs yet.” She smiles as best she can. “They’re doing well, by the way.”

Will’s lip tugs in a partial smile. “That’s what Freddie tells me.”

“Freddie,” Alana replies sourly. “Your new best friend.”

Her jealousy is just surprising enough to be interesting. “She’s waiting me out,” Will supplies. 

“How long will she have to wait?”

Alana looks immediately like she regrets asking but doesn’t take the question back. 

Will’s eyebrows jump. He stops a shrug of his shoulder before it can start: turns out almost every movement involves the abdominal muscles. Instead, he gives his head a small shake to indicate that he doesn’t know. 

Alana looks down at her hands in her lap. She’s contemplative. Will senses she's about to say what she came here to say. 

“One day, I want to hear what you saw,” she says with quiet intensity. “I want to tell you what I saw. I need to.”

Will closes his eyes and offers a tiny nod. He sighs. “You’ll hear from me before she does,” he says tiredly. 

Alana takes his hand where it rests on the mattress. Will doesn’t open his eyes. She’ll be tearing up and he can’t handle that. But it feels warm and human to have her hands around his. He lets himself relax just a bit and feels the stream beckoning. 

Alana’s harsh, choked breathing keeps him in the moment. He’s grateful for the dull blanket of drugs insulating him from emotion. But in spite of them, his chest begins to hurt. He tries to envision the stream but all he can see is Alana lying half-dead on the pavement amid rain and blood and glass. This familiar image is easier to deal with than the sight he’d see if he were to open his eyes, though, so he keeps them shut. 

“If you want to talk,” Will says at length, “I’ll listen.” 

Her hands squeeze his. He hears her taking calming breaths. Good. He said the right thing. And he means it. He just hopes she waits a while. 

As Alana’s composure returns, Will wades through thick grass, closing in on the stream. He doesn’t mean to stay long. But he has nothing left to say. 

He’s at the edge of the stream when she removes her hands. They say quiet goodbyes and well-wishes and Will listens to the effort it takes Alana to get up and make it to the door. She’s fighting hard. She’s angry. 

Will rolls onto his back. He can sympathize with that, but only just so. His own rage is buried. He closes his eyes again and imagines the stream.


	8. Salvation

Jack comes to see him a few days later. Jack's suit hangs off of his frame and his eyes are haunted, but more than anything, he’s determined. 

“I keep turning over in my mind the moment I had him,” Jack says emphatically. “I had him in a stranglehold with my tie.” He demonstrates with his hands, holding an invisible Hannibal on his back and squeezing the life out of him. “He went limp.” Jack holds still for a moment, then looks down. His shoulders deflate.

“I let him go.” 

Will nods, his gaze fixed on the table to Jack’s right. He hasn’t sought the police reports, hasn’t wanted to know. It’s inevitable that he will, but he wants to remain ignorant as long as possible. All he knows is what he saw and the few unsolicited tidbits Freddie has shared with him. He doesn’t want to know this or anything else from Jack because once he knows it, he’s sure to dream about it. He can already see the dream he’ll have later: the moment when Jack thought he’d won.

“That’s what he does,” Will says numbly. 

“Purnell’s still trying to have me reprimanded,” Jack continues. “But now that she’s seen what he does, she wants to catch him, too.” He pauses. “Not like I want to catch him, but it’s something.” Jack claps his hands on his thighs.

Will licks his chapped lips, swallows, and locks eyes with Jack. 

“Don’t be Captain Ahab,” Will advises. “Don’t let him be your white whale.” 

Jack sniffs. “I don’t have a choice.” 

“He gave me a choice,” Will says distantly, his eyes losing focus as he relives the moment. “The night before. He wanted me to run away with him. Say nothing to you or Alana.” He blinks. “If I’d known he had Abigail…”

Hearing himself say her name cuts. He looks away and wishes he could slip into the stream. 

“He didn’t want to cloud your judgment,” Jack says. 

Will sniffs and flinches at a stab of pain. “No,” he agrees. “He wanted me to make a choice. He wanted to hold me responsible for that choice.” 

Their dinner plays in his head, running up to the look of vengeful judgment and deep sorrow on Hannibal’s face as the blade bit him. Will feels the emotion he’s kept down start to climb up his throat. He swallows roughly and wishes he could escape. 

“You have a choice to make now,” Jack says. 

Will, his face turning red, glances toward Jack again. He swallows around his feelings. “What choice is that?” he asks in a rough voice, knowing what Jack will say but grateful for the distraction. 

“Later,” Jack says, choosing his words with care, “when you’re better.” Jack leans closer as though he’s sharing a secret. “Help me catch him.”

Will, far too upset to be having this conversation, closes his eyes. “We’ll see,” he murmurs. 

Jack takes his cue and gets to his feet. He’s most of the way to the door before he stops and turns. 

“Will.”

Will pries his eyes open and squints at Jack.

“I’m sorry.”

Will nearly chokes as he nods. Jack leaves before the lump in Will’s throat can spill onto the pillow in painful sobs that wrack his whole body. He doesn’t know what he’s crying about – the hell of it all, he supposes. His guts scream at him to stop. That only makes it worse. As he’s learned to do with everything lately, Will curls into a ball and rides it out. 

Nearly an hour later, he wakes from an exhausted half-sleep to see the blunt but fair day nurse scrutinizing him. 

“You needed that,” she says abruptly. Her tone brooks no response.

Will blinks at her. 

“How do you feel?”

“Terrible,” he admits, his raw voice. 

Her face doesn’t change. But Will answers a few more questions and soon finds himself eagerly anticipating a shot of the good stuff. Whether a form of pity or a reward for his breakdown, it’s a welcome surprise. 

Some inner part of him whispers a litany of _dependence, habituation, addiction_. He ignores it. He feels like shit and he’s earned this relief. 

When the nurse returns, Will tries to keep expectation out of his eyes. He’s certain she sees it. They’re trained to look for that sort of thing. 

“You’re going to eat when you wake up,” the nurse says as she begins pushing the drug. “And no more visitors today. You’ve had enough.”

Will offers a small nod, unable to take his eyes off of the thin plastic tube through which flows his salvation. 

“You comfortable on that side?”

Will nods again. It would be nice to move to his other side but he doesn’t want to put in the effort. She touches him when he turns. Though her touch is light and appropriate and she thinks she’s offering stability, he doesn’t like any of them touching him, so he won’t do it. He’d rather wake up sore. 

But none of that matters right now.

Will closes his eyes as morphine kisses him sweetly. He takes a breath and it sweeps him away to bliss.


	9. God the Father

Will sleeps poorly. He dreams about Jack and his father. 

At first, it’s just his father. Dad sits on a porch drinking a beer, his wrinkled face beet red with sunburn. He stews and seethes, quietly angry. Unapproachable. It’s such an ordinary part of his childhood that Will isn’t sure why his mind goes to it. But he still feels as alienated from other people as he did when, as a child, he needed something and looked up at that red face. 

Abruptly, his father grabs his own neck and begins struggling and choking. Will sees Jack on the killing end and suddenly he’s in Hannibal’s bloody kitchen and Jack thinks he’s got Hannibal unconscious. 

Jack doesn’t want to kill. He wants to arrest. He doesn’t understand that there can be no mercy. 

He sees Jack let Hannibal go. In this dream, he’s not a participant but a voyeur. Jack pants, tired and hurting. He doesn’t go immediately for his phone. He thinks he’s won. Will watches Hannibal stir and pick up a shard of glass and – 

Hannibal is before him, stroking his cheek, and Will isn’t sure what’s about to happen, he thinks Hannibal might be about to kiss him – in front of Abigail, that seems excessive – and then Hannibal stabs and slices with no hesitation, no emotion, nothing but a slight brightness in his eyes.

When Will falls, it’s into the center of the mural. The putrid stench of death lingers beneath the metallic overtones of fresh blood. There’s his father, strangled, his eyes bulging and opaque like a dead fish’s. Jack, bleeding around the glass in his neck. Alana weeping quietly, the deep cuts in her kidneys soaking the ground crimson, her spine swelling as she shivers with cold. And next to him, Abigail sobs, her throat bobbing, her hot blood spurting through Will’s hand. 

Will chokes on pain as Hannibal stands over him and talks airily about God. The eye of the silo forms a halo around his head. The universe is full of irony, Will thinks. 

“God would be nothing without his greatest creation, Man,” Hannibal opines. “A single angel aside, only Man dares challenge God. When God is challenged, he can forgive or punish. How does God forgive, Will, when Man betrays him?”

Will can’t answer beyond coughing weakly as his guts try to slide through his fingers. The stink of fish guts rotting in the sun clogs his nose. 

He’s a fish splayed out on a cutting board. Hannibal reaches for a fillet knife and calmly cuts into him. 

Will screams. 

He screams like a gut-shot deer. He screams like Mason Verger’s pigs at the taste of flesh. He screams until he’s screaming in the dark hospital room and he realizes the screams are in his head and his own noises are just weak, baleful mewls. 

He feels dizzy and thirsty and sick but he can’t move. Still in the calcified grip of morphine. The sweat-soaked gown clings close. Will swallows against nausea and breathes and thinks about the dogs. Happy faces with lolling tongues and wagging tails. He doesn’t want to bring them into this place but it’s too soon for the stream. He can’t see her again yet. The dream is too close. 

He’s still for a long time. When he dozes, Hannibal greets him with an omniscient smirk. 

_Did you believe you could change me the way I’ve changed you?_

_You were supposed to leave._

And always Hannibal’s hand stroking his cheek, Hannibal’s embrace, his scent mixed with the scent of blood, that moment when Will thought they would all run away together and felt for just a second the airy lift of hope as he wondered whether he could join them. It’s all so much closer to the surface than he needs it to be. 

Will blinks and wishes he could go back to sleep. 

Associations blur dreams with waking. Hannibal lectures on the quality of mercy. 

_I’m supposed to see this as merciful?_ Will asks with an angry gesture at his wound.

 _No_ , Hannibal answers. _You’re supposed to see it as just._

Hannibal strokes his cheek and Will floats on an updraft of hope.

 _Justice_ , Hannibal murmurs in his ear as he cleaves delicate organs. _Justice._


	10. Rise of Sisyphus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I gave up! If only I could give up! […]
> 
> You must go on.
> 
> I can’t go on.
> 
> I'll go on.
> 
> – Samuel Beckett, _The Unnameable_

Will falls easily into a routine: eat, suffer, exercise, suffer, sleep, dream terribly, repeat. He’s well into it when they put him under to reverse the colostomy. One step forward, two steps back, he thinks as he lies on his side and suffers through the reawakening of yet another part of his digestive tract. 

He’s got suffering down to a science: regular doses of Vicodin and candy keep him mostly quiet and dazed, able to slip inside himself without thinking about it. He and Abigail are slowly exploring the Smokies. He thinks they’ll go West next. With this movie in his head, he’s made suffering into an art. 

Other people have become tedious. They goad him when he wants only to lie in the quiet. He suffers for the rewards of more pills, more candy, more numbness. Freddie and Alana visit him regularly. They’ve learned to say little to him. He waits patiently for them to give up. 

Will plows the same furrow every day for so long that he hardly notices the steady accumulation of progress. He refuses to let himself anticipate anything. And so when he’s made to get out of bed and take a lap around the room, when small pieces of meat appear next to the tasteless pasta or potatoes on his dinner tray, when more time passes between chewing and suffering, he feels nothing. No sense of accomplishment. 

What is there to expect? Solitude in his little house by the woods is all he wants. Perhaps one day peace – but only if he sees the corpse. Probably not even then. 

Nonetheless, somehow, he must go on. 

He finds a way when he takes his first shower in – close to a month, he isn’t sure, hasn’t been keeping track. The spray gently hitting his shoulders, he savors the privacy, the first he's had. 

As though it were waiting for him to reach this moment, an imagined future sparks and burns and he has a goal: to leave this place. It hasn’t been thinkable until recently. But now he can envision returning home.

He admits to himself that he’ll never have control over his life in the way he once did. Not when Abigail is with him constantly. Not when he hears Hannibal in his sleep and when he’s awake and in between. Not when a molten core of rage and hurt and betrayal smolders beneath the painkillers. 

_You were supposed to leave._

A knock on the door makes Will jump. He hisses through the lance of pain. He’s daydreaming again. That’s what this nurse calls it. 

“I’m okay,” Will says, making no effort to conceal the annoyance in his voice. He tips his head back into the water and thinks, _Let me enjoy my freedom._

Freedom: an impossibility in so many ways, yet he can free himself from this place. Will clamps down on that idea, sinking his canines into it, testing its texture. An idea like a fine steak. 

Hannibal flashes before him with a hunk of Abigail’s flesh in his mouth. So much echoes in Will’s head. Suddenly dizzy, he grasps the edges of the shower chair and holds himself upright with straining arms. 

Breathe. Breathe.

When the last image of Hannibal swirls away, Will feels tired and old. He soaps himself with no enjoyment. It was a mistake to want something. And a mistake to let his mind wander to meat. Will sniffs internally: as though he has control over what his mind does. 

Later that evening, he changes his diet preference to vegetarian.


	11. Persistence

A few weeks later, Will waits in a wheelchair at the curb for Alana to pick him up. It’s a beautiful day. Warm but not hot. Despite the noise of the curbside, Will feels peaceful. He fills his lungs with fresh air beneath a clear, blue sky and appreciates the moment more than he ever thought he could appreciate anything. 

When the euphoria passes, he realizes he’s higher than he intended to be. But not by much. And anyway, it’s just a sense of pleasantness. Everything is distant yet easy to appreciate. A part of him feels protected. He enjoys this most about the high. He’s just about to slip into the stream with Abigail – they dwelled long in Colorado and Wyoming and have finally made it to Bozeman – when Freddie appears. 

“It’s him,” she says, subtly brandishing a folder. “Croatia. Outside Zagreb.” 

Will doesn’t spare a glance. “I said no, Freddie.” 

But he’s too messed up for the words to sound as authoritative as he means them to be. 

“He’s leaving you messages,” she continues. “It’s even more apparent in this one.” 

Will growls to himself. “So go to Jack.” 

“Already have,” Freddie says. “His empire is in ruins.” 

“And Purnell won’t listen to you,” Will finishes. “I know. But I’m done playing his game.” 

Freddie pointedly clicks a heel. “As long as he’s out there, none of us is done playing his game.” 

Will is almost relieved to see Alana’s car approaching. He gives Freddie his best hard stare. “I’m done.” 

Freddie sighs and looks away with annoyed deference to Will’s moral authority, then spins on her heel and disappears. 

Will exhales and floats along the calm surface of his mind. He should be upset – he feels their conversation burrowing like a parasite into his guts where it will gnaw on him. But he’s in that quiet place where nothing matters. 

_Freedom enough_ , he thinks as he breathes in fresh air. 

Alana offers him a hand. Will accepts it without complaint or thought, his pride beaten into submission long ago. As he stands and walks gingerly but without much need for help the few steps to the car, he recalls all the miles he put in on the fourth floor of the building at his back. How easily the mind clings to triumph and deletes pain. He’s glad for that as he settles into the passenger’s seat. He still has a long, painful road ahead. 

Alana is nervous. Anxious. Will retreats a few steps into the cocoon of medication. But his body has already told itself to mimic hers. His fingers want to tap on his knees. Will closes his eyes and focuses on his breathing. Well-practiced and medicated, he calms quickly. 

He’s just beginning to drift off when the motion of the car jolts him awake. He keeps his eyes shut and his breathing even. Alana, accustomed to him slipping off, says nothing. 

Soon, the motion of the car feels like the motion of water and he’s in the stream with Abigail. Outside of time. 

Will rests. 


	12. Homecoming

All too soon, Alana’s hand on his knee brings him back. Will blinks as he breathes in and wonders why she touched his knee instead of his shoulder. She’s still nervous but she’s smiling warmly at him and it feels like rays of sunshine are bathing his face. Reflexively, he smiles back. 

Then she’s out of the car and talking to the dogs. Will unbuckles his seatbelt to get out, a task made more difficult by the car's low clearance and his long legs. Slowly, carefully, he manages to pull himself up and to his feet. His tender muscles scream and he understands again why he’s not supposed to lift anything over a pound yet. 

Alana keeps the eager dogs inside as Will makes his way from the yard to the porch. She opens a passage for him through the jumble of curious noses and bodies and tails. He settles in a kitchen chair and says hello to everyone. 

The dogs are gentle in spite of their excitement, crowding for attention but not venturing into his lap. A few whine when they smell him. Will soothes them with gentle words and strokes. 

Alana places a bag of prescriptions and instructions from the hospital on the table and sits at the other end to greet the dogs. They know her as well as they do him now. She pays special attention to the dogs that whined. 

Will watches her. Though he tried not to picture his homecoming, when he did, he was always alone. He doesn’t know what to do now. He starts gazing around the house and notices that it looks lived-in. He turns a questioning look on a point behind Alana’s head. 

“You been living here?” 

“Sort of,” Alana says with meek embarrassment.

Oh. 

Will taps his fingers on the table so he has something to look at. 

“For a few days,” Alana qualifies. “To make it seem homey.”

“To make it seem homey,” Will repeats to himself, his hand stilling. He isn’t sure what’s going on and doesn’t know what to feel. But the complication is not welcome. 

“I… could picture you…” Alana begins, “here by yourself. Empty fridge. Hungry dogs.” 

Will’s eyes flit to what seems to be a fairly well-stocked kitchen. “Thank you for the groceries,” he says gruffly.

“I just, ah – until you settle in –” Alana stops and takes a breath. “I worry about you. If I can see that you’re okay…” 

Will sniffs. Alana tilts her head to acknowledge the poor choice of words. 

“That you’re surviving.” 

Will stays quiet. He has exactly zero desire for Alana or anyone else to live in his house while he spends most of his time dazed, pained, or hunkered down in the bathroom. To the degree he’d expected anything upon coming home, it was to spend a lot of time in bed curled up around his guts, away in the stream with Abigail. 

Much as he was doing in the hospital where Alana visited him almost every day, he realizes. So it’s not that different. 

Except that it is. It’s an invasion. 

Will turns all of it over in his sleep-heavy mind and concludes that Alana has dug in and he doesn’t have the energy to kick her out. 

So he shrugs his half-hearted approval and returns all of his attention to the dogs.


	13. Little Things

Once the dogs have been thoroughly greeted, Will is left with nothing to do but take in the situation.

A housemate. A housemate who, when she’s nervous, talks – and who starts talking presently as the dogs disperse. She has a meal plan for him from the hospital and has bought everything needed to stick to that plan for a week. This is one of the upsides, from her perspective, of her staying here for a little while: shared meals are easier on them both. She’s upstairs in the guest room. Bought a white noise machine because everything wakes her up now. Even with Applesauce, she hadn’t felt entirely safe in her own home. 

As she speaks, Will feels like a heel for wanting her to leave. And it’s not really that he wants her to leave. He just wants to be alone. Leaving the hospital, talking to Freddie, now this – it’s too much. He needs to retreat and regroup. 

Will nods at whatever Alana is saying and digs a Vicodin out of the bottle. She stops talking and watches him by watching the bottle. Will chases the pill with a dose of water, pops a candy into his mouth, and carefully pushes himself up using the table. Alana lets him do it by himself, though she flinches when he can’t stifle a wince. 

“I need to be alone,” Will mumbles. He uses the furniture to get to bed. The bed, he sees, is made up the way he likes and already turned down for him. She’s even laid out clothes. 

It’s all so damn considerate. Will looks over at her. 

“Thank you,” he says genuinely, projecting his voice just enough so she can hear him across the room, “for making it homey.” He tries to smile.

For a split second, Alana beams at him. Then it’s just a regular smile. “I’m going to take the dogs out,” she says. 

When they’re gone and he’s alone, Will changes his clothes as quickly as he can, his eyes fixed on the floor so he won’t see himself. Doing his best not to think, he works his way into a comfortable position on his side with his back to the room. He presses his face into the pillow and sighs and begins to melt. 

His own bed at last.

Some time passes. He doesn’t know how much, nor does he care. Maybe he sleeps.

Eventually, the light has changed and Alana is standing nearby offering him something. Will blinks. He takes the object, an iPad, and listens while Alana explains that it can access hundreds of hours of nature and science shows. In case he gets bored. And because she knows he wishes he could spend his time outside now that the weather is warmer. She presses play on an episode of _Nature_ about wolves in Yellowstone National Park.

Will is still high enough that the glowing screen captures his attention more than the pathos behind Alana’s words. She smiles and props it up against a pillow so he can watch while he lies on his side. Will, normally averse to television, stares at the stunning images of wolves and streams and mountains and meadows and slips easily into the beautiful, brutal natural world. 

For a few happy moments, he forgets where he is. 

When the episode ends, Will realizes he smells hot soup. He’s not hungry and he doesn’t want to get up. But there are expectations. 

The best he can do is to sit up by himself. Alana has extra pillows ready and helps prop him up. She’s got a tray ready, too, with water and a bottle of Ensure. Will sneers at the bottle, hating how infirm it makes him feel, and begins toying with the soup. At least she chose something that’ll be easy on him. 

Will shudders to think that she’s made that calculation. He’s so internally focused that he misses her pulling up a chair next to him. Same tray, soup, water, and Ensure, but she’s got a salad also. 

Oh. 

Will sighs to himself and begins to eat. 

“Buster’s doing better,” Alana says after a while. “He can run again.” 

Will locates Buster in the room. The little dog is curled up in his bed, watching Will and blinking tiredly. Trying not to fall asleep. Will smiles at him and Buster wags his tail. Will looks away before the terrier can get excited. But he sees out of the corner of his eye that the slashes in Buster’s side have turned to scars. Were it not for the dog’s short hair, he wouldn’t see them at all. 

“Thank you,” Will says to the soup, “for taking care of them.” 

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Alana smile at him. Will realizes he could get used to seeing her smile at him. And that he’ll be getting into complicated territory if he does. He turns his attention back to the soup. 

“Thank you,” Alana says, “for introducing me to them.” 

Now Will does smile. He feels good. He tells himself it’s the drugs and the warm soup in his stomach. 

But if this is how it’s going to be, he could get used to it.


End file.
